JOIN USOf pythons and pandas
We all know how language varies from region to region and even within languages there are many dialects which are so different that a person speaking one dialect may find it difficult to follow another dialect.
For example, I am a Pallakkad Iyer. Which means that the language of my community has a brand name of its own called ‘Tamilalam’ - an adroit mixture of Tamil and Malayalam. My driver is a Bihari from Gaya and my peon in the office is from Haryana.
I have a colleague from Rajasthan. All ostensibly belong to the Hindi belt. But they might all three be speaking different languages -- the dialects are so different!
Also, I have found, a word in one language can mean something totally different in another language, sometimes with disastrous consequences. A rose may not always have the same meaning in all languages. Or, one man’s greeting may be another’s man foul language!
So much for language and dialects. But of late, I have come across a different kind of ‘language problem’. During the lockdown when everyone was ‘working from home’, a strange kind of language seemed to be going around.
I found my son perpetually talking of ‘jeera’ or so it sounded. The only ‘jeera’ I know is the condiment used as tadka or the jeera powder used to season sabzis and of course, rasam.
One day in total frustration I asked my daughter-in-law, who is also a software engineer, what was the ‘jeera’ my son was always talking about? She explained with an amused smile that it was a software.
As if that was not strange enough, one weekend my daughter and son-in- law came over. With three software engineers in the family present, the subjects discussed were a bit over my head.
As I was getting the lunch ready, I realised there was some discussion on ‘python’. Alarmed, I rushed out of the kitchen to ask who had seen a python and where! Again, with an amused smile my son-in-law informed me that python was a software!
I thought that was that and there could be no more surprises on techn jargon. But I was wrong! A few days later I was waiting for a cab. Some young people behind me were talking of ‘pandas’.
I presumed that they were talking about the animal. On an instinct that I was mistaken again, I just turned around and asked them (to their utter shock and surprise) whether they were talking about the endangered species found in the forests of China. “No, aunty,” they replied, “It’s a software.”
Well, I thought, it’s not technology alone that has changed drastically in recent years, but the jargon as well! Who would have thought that pythons and pandas would enter the lexicon of the software world.
Perhaps, the creators of this lexicon realised that this was one way to remind the tech-crazy generation that a different world of creatures also share this universe with them.